Letters, Extracts, Notices, <Sfc. 381 



tific companionSj Lieutenant Robrowsky and Sub-Lieutenant 

 Koslow. 



Obituary. — Mr. H. Pryer and M. M. N. Bogdanow. 

 From the ' Times ' of April 23rd we learn of the death, 

 in Japan, on the 17th of February, of Mr. Harry Pryeb, 

 C.M.Z.S., the Yokohama naturalist, at the early age of 37. 

 When Mr. Pryer went to Japan in 1870 he was already 

 known as an active Fellow of the Entomological Society of 

 Loudon. In the intervals of a busy mercantile career he 

 interested himself in Japanese natural history, and soon 

 became a recognized authority on the subject. In conjunc- 

 tion with Captain T. Blakiston, he wrote the very useful list 

 of the Birds of Japan, published in the 10th volume of the 

 'Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan' in 1882. To 

 the 11th volume of the same journal he contributed an article 

 upon the Butterflies of Japan, and in 1886 published the first 

 number of an illustrated work on the same subject, entitled 

 ' Rhopalocera Nihonica.' Mr. Pryer was not only an assi- 

 duous collector, but a keen observer and a practical investi- 

 gator, and his researches on the parasites of the silkworm 

 have been of material advantage to the silk-culture of Japan. 

 His house and garden were filled with valuable specimens 

 of animals, living and dead, and the loss sustained by the 

 European community through his death is shared by the 

 Japanese, who recognize the valuable services he rendered 

 to them in connexion with the establishment and maintenance 

 of the museum at Tokio. 



Modest N. Bogdanow, for some years head of the Orni- 

 thological Department of the Imperial Academy of Science 

 in St. Petersburg, died on the IGth of March. He succeeded 

 Valerian von llussow (whose death from smallpox was 

 recorded in 'The Ibis' in 1879) in the charge of the valuable 

 collection of birds in the Imperial Museum, but was com- 

 pelled by failing health to relinquish his post a year or 

 two ago in favour of Theodor Pleske, whose works on the 

 ' Ornithologie der St. Petersburgcr Gouvernements ' and the 

 ' Siiugethiere und Vogel der Kola-halbinsel ' are familiar to 



